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Directions

Special equipment: pressure cooker

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

For the tomatillo sauce: On a baking sheet, combine the tomatillos, garlic, Anaheim peppers, jalapenos and onions. Drizzle olive oil over everything and hit it with salt. Place in the oven and roast until the vegetables are browned and soft, roughly 45 minutes.

For the pork: Combine the cayenne, coriander, cumin, garlic powder, dry mustard, oregano, paprika, thyme and 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well.

Trim the excess fat off the pork butt and belly and cut into 3- by 3-inch chunks. Put the pork in large bowl. Pour the spice rub mixture onto the pork a little at a time and toss the pork to make sure every piece is coated with the rub. Let sit.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large frying pan. When the oil gets super hot, add a few pieces of pork and put a nice sear on it. Brown the meat on both sides and remove from the pan. Continue to sear off the remaining pieces of pork, adding more oil if needed.

When all the pork is seared, put it in the pressure cooker and add all the juices from the frying pan into the pressure cooker. Don't forget to get all the little brown bits off the bottom of the pan. This is called fond and it's full of flavor.

Add the garlic, Anaheim peppers, jalapenos and onions. Give it a good stir and turn up the heat.

When things are sizzling and rocking and rolling, deglaze the pot with the beer. (You're not going to have a lot of room to move in your pressure cooker pot, but get a spatula or wooden spoon down in there and give the bottom of the pot a good scrape to loosen the fond off the bottom to get them into the mix of peppers, pork, onion and garlic.) Hit the pot with a good pinch of salt and some pepper, then put the pressure cooker top on and cook for 45 minutes. Then release the steam from the pressure cooker very carefully. (Note: Please follow manufacturer's instructions for this.)

To finish the tomatillo sauce: Remove the tomatillos and peppers from the oven. Remove the stems from the tomatillos and place them in a blender with the roasted vegetables. Rip all the leaves off of a bunch of cilantro and add that to the blender. Blend until smooth. Adjust the texture of the sauce with a few tablespoons water. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Put in the refrigerator to chill and set up.

Remove the pork from the pressure cooker and place on a baking sheet. With the back of a fork and a pair of tongs, shred the pork, and mix the belly and butt together. This should be easy to do after the pressure cooker has worked its magic.

With a slotted spoon, remove the peppers, onion and garlic and put them all into a blender. Add one third of the liquid from the pressure cooker and blend. Use the liquid to adjust the consistency so you have a sauce that is not too thick. Taste and season with salt if needed.

For the tacos: Heat the vegetable oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook the chorizo until browned and cooked through.

In a hot frying pan with some vegetable oil, add a handful of the shredded pork in silver-dollar-pancake-size portions. We want to get a little crust on the outside of the pork.

In another frying pan over medium heat, warm up the tortillas one by one and cover with a towel to keep warm.

Place a crispy pork pile on 2 stacked tortillas, then top with 1 teaspoon of the braising sauce, some chorizo, some shredded cabbage, 1 tablespoon of tomatillo sauce and some crumbled Cotija cheese. Sprinkle with cilantro, then hit it with a squeeze of lime and enjoy. It seems labor intensive, but trust me, the flavor will blow your sombrero off!

This recipe was created by a contestant during a cooking competition. It has not been tested for home use.